We and our Land

A true farmer loves his land. In the story of Joseph and the famine that hit Egypt there is a telling little verse (Genesis 47:19). The Egyptians have run out of food and money, and they have sold all their animals back to the king already in exchange for another year’s worth of food. However the famine is unrelenting. The next year they return to Joseph to beg for help and there is an interesting bit of parallelism in the request.

“Why should we die before your face- also us and also our land. Buy us and our land, for food, and we and our land will be your slaves.”

Particularly they specify, “Give food for for us so that we will not die, and seed-grain for our land so that it will not die.”

Humans were hard-wired, beginning with Adam, to care for the land. When we forget that we abandon a God-given trust.

Just a snippet from the beautiful literary crafting of the book of Genesis.

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It is. It is also interesting that after enslaving the Egyptians to Pharaoh, Joseph proceeded to ask for 20% of the harvest. This was exactly the same amount that they had been forking over when they were “free.” When Joseph’s family came to Egypt, and before the land was officially “his” Pharaoh grandly said, ‘You can have the best of the land.” Surely someone else was already enjoying the “best of the land” In fact not much really changed.